Diane Lim Rogers , Chief Economist for the Concord Coalition, was interviewed for this very interesting Planet Money piece on US citizens donating money to reduce the federal deficit. In the interview, she said that it would be "economically stupid," for all taxpayers to rally together and pay off the debt. She also said it would be "unwise," as current citizens would be taking on a huge, unfair burden. Rogers explains her comments at her Economist Mom column: But let’s assume we could do it without destroying our nation; let’s assume we could go “poof” and wipe the debt slate clean. What would paying off the debt entirely today accomplish in terms of fiscal sustainability? Not nearly as much as it would seem. Unfortunately, reaching even zero debt does not eliminate what’s “unsustainable” about our fiscal outlook. We would start with a clean slate, but right away our debt would start accumulating again–because the dynamics of the fiscal outlook would still be all wrong: promised entitlement benefits would still be growing too fast for the economy and revenues to keep up. While without any debt we’d eliminate about $200 billion in net interest this year, the rest of mandatory spending alone–without counting any discretionary spending–would still use up nearly all of our revenue. So even having “zeroed out the debt clock” we would still have a large deficit right away this year, immediately starting the debt clock back up again, and that new debt would be immediately projected to keep growing faster than GDP–the definition of an “unsustainable” fiscal outlook. So even a magical zero debt to GDP situation is not “sustainable” if the unsustainable paths in the fiscal outlook are not changed. Conversely, a high debt to GDP situation, while not ideal (because of the interest burden), might still be “sustainable” if the economy is on a growth path that manages to keep pace with the gap between spending (including interest) and revenues. That’s a big “if” though. Which is why when I said that there’s no such thing as an unsustainable level of debt to GDP (at any one particular point in time) I didn’t mean to imply that a high level of debt to GDP couldn’t be consistent with a completely unsustainable path of debt to GDP over time. What I’m trying to say is what defines that unsustainability isn’t where we are right now but what we’re doing (or not) to change where we’reheaded. Read Why eliminating the national debt alone would not fix America's fiscal woes here .